zation,--when
crowds of dullards all aflame with unexpected imagination assemble in
ascension-robes to await the apocalyptic trump, and Asiatic polygamy
spreads unmolested along our Western rivers,--when the prediction is
accomplished, "Old men dream dreams and young men see visions," and the
most practical of the ages bids fair to glide ghostly into history as
the most superstitious,--it is well, it can but be well, to contemplate
reverently that Reason, which Coleridge, after Leighton, calls "an
influence from the Glory of the Almighty." In the contemplation of the
spirit of man (not your _animula_, by any means!) there is earnest of
immortality which needs not that one rise from the dead to confirm it.
In view of the Foresight which guides men, we may trust that all this
tumultuous sense of inadequacy in present institutions, this blind
notion of wrong, far enough from intelligent correction, is, after all,
better than sluggish inaction.

BULLS AND BEARS.

[Concluded.]

CHAPTER XXX.

The suspension of specie payments brought instant relief to all really
solvent mercantile houses; since those who had valuable assets of any
kind could now obtain discounts sufficient to enable them to meet their
liabilities. Among those who were at once relieved was the house of
Lindsay and Company; they resumed payment and recommenced business.

Mr. Lindsay lost no time in finding his clerk Monroe, and reinstated him
with an increased salary. Great was the sorrow in the ragged school at
the loss of the teacher; and it was with some regret that he abandoned
the place. He felt no especial vocation to the career of a missionary;
but his duties had become less irksome than at the beginning, if not
absolutely pleasant. His own position, however, was such that he could
not afford to continue in his self-denying occupation. Easelmann was one
of the first to congratulate him upon his improved prospects.

"Don't you feel sorry, my dear fellow? Now you get upon your treadmill
of business, and you must keep going, or break your legs. Think, too,
of the jolly little rascals you have left! The beggars are the only
aristocracy we have,--the only people who enjoy their _dolce far
niente_. Look on the Common: who are there amusing themselves on a fine
day, unless it be your Duke Do-nothing, Earl Out-at-elbows, Duchess
Draggle-tail, and others of that happy class? Meanwhile your Lawrences,
Eliots, and the 'Merchant Princes' (a satirica